Why it is unethical to use homeopathy on horses

Mike007 said:
Quantum entanglement was up until recently a nonsense idea until it was demonstrated. We have no idea still if its effects can be demonstrated beyond the subatomic level. I suspect that there is a lot of myth and mystery attached to Homeopathy but I cant dismiss it out of hand because we now know "God does play dice"
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Th mechanism as to how homeopathy supposedly works is irrelevant when meta-studies and systematic reviews have proven than, at least in a clinical setting, it has no effect on treating any type of disease at all.
 
This thread has taught me many things.

One thing, is that perhaps, if vets were not able to treat using homeopathy, then so what?

There are many places where it is available. Anyway, why would you pay a vet when you can ask someone on facebook.
 
Tallyho - the thing is a lot of people don't keep up to date with the medical world. Unless you've an illness or condition chances are you won't be reading about the latest finds or such. As a result people put huge trust in doctors and vets in order for them to tell them what the proper treatment should be.

If vets are allowed to use homeopathic treatments there's a good chance that some will when the medical research shows that it gives no actual medical gain beyond placebo (which as already identified isn't going to work on animals).

Whilst many might be aware of homeopathic lots won't; they will just hear a long word and be given some pills/treatment and will trust that their vet knows what is best.



This move is to protect those people from poor quality vets giving them missleading advice. I'm fairly sure that the mark-up and profit margins for homeopathic treatment are huge so its a big potential money earner and temptation
 
Overread said:
This move is to protect those people from poor quality vets giving them misleading advice. I'm fairly sure that the mark-up and profit margins for homeopathic treatment are huge so its a big potential money earner and temptation
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Hardly! We still have plenty of poor quality vets prescribing and making a profit from vastly expensive drugs of little efficacy from the largest industry in the world, the pharmaceutical industry . They dont need to try to sell unpatentable treatments. In fact it is not in their interest to use any traditional treatment as there is no profit .
 
Overread said:
Tallyho - the thing is a lot of people don't keep up to date with the medical world. Unless you've an illness or condition chances are you won't be reading about the latest finds or such. As a result people put huge trust in doctors and vets in order for them to tell them what the proper treatment should be.

If vets are allowed to use homeopathic treatments there's a good chance that some will when the medical research shows that it gives no actual medical gain beyond placebo (which as already identified isn't going to work on animals).

Whilst many might be aware of homeopathic lots won't; they will just hear a long word and be given some pills/treatment and will trust that their vet knows what is best.



This move is to protect those people from poor quality vets giving them missleading advice. I'm fairly sure that the mark-up and profit margins for homeopathic treatment are huge so its a big potential money earner and temptation
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My comment was very tongue in cheek... apologies it didn't come across that way...

The sentiment was that, if vets take on virtually no responsibility for homeopathy and herbs then people will go off doing things without the proper research or advice.

Excuse the flippant way I phrase my posts, but I am largely in favour of vets retaining some form of control and knowledge so the general public are not endangered by self-proclaimed practitioners and experts. Just pleading ignorance to the large "problem" will in time make the problem bigger. Like I said previously, desperation will make people seek out last ditch efforts.
 
chillipup said:
RCVS muddled over homeopathy. I received an update on this topic today for anyone interested. Seems a very strange response by the RCVS www.vetsurgeon.org/news/b/veterinary_news/archive/2016/09/30/140108.aspx
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That reply days only one thing, for me.

'we have vets who are making a mint from offering homeopathic services that we know for sure don't work and compromise animal welfare but we don't want to upset them by banning their gravy train'. Shameful response from a professional organisation.
 
ycbm said:
That reply days only one thing, for me.

'we have vets who are making a mint from offering homeopathic services that we know for sure don't work and compromise animal welfare but we don't want to upset them by banning their gravy train'. Shameful response from a professional organisation.
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Meh. Nothing surprises me when it comes to animals.
 
tallyho! said:
Meh. Nothing surprises me when it comes to animals.
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I agree with you that people will still get homeopathy, btw. The difference is that if it's being given by a vet there is nothing the authorities can do. If it was being given by someone else and the animal was suffering, the keeper could be prosecuted.

It's utterly shameful that a professional body supports that situation :)
 
I was really disappointed in the RCVS response. My own governing body is either unable or unwilling to take a stand against homeopathy. Ive been graduated five years, and was taught strictly evidence based medicine. I am yet to see, read or hear any evidence in favour of homeopathy.

I have no problem with homeopathic remedies being offered by someone who is not a professional, but veterinary surgeons should not be providing this service without significant evidence that the treatments work. Horses do not perceive a placebo effect in the same way that humans can.

As far as I am concerned the RCVS has let down vets, clients and patients.
 
where is the evidence to prove that it does`nt work, but if they can`t prove that it does work, or `think that it does`nt` are they going to be bothered to find out if it does`nt. at one time the world was believed to be flat.

vets do lots of things that do work based on evidence, and still the animal dies.
 
tristar said:
where is the evidence to prove that it does`nt work, but if they can`t prove that it does work, or `think that it does`nt` are they going to be bothered to find out if it does`nt. at one time the world was believed to be flat.

vets do lots of things that do work based on evidence, and still the animal dies.
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It isn't possible to prove a negative. You can't prove that anything doesn't or won't ever happen.

You can't prove that sheep can't fly.

But after throwing a thousand sheep of a cliff and seing them go splat on the rocks, most people would accept that sheep can't fly.

As far as homeopathy goes, those thousand sheep were thrown over the cliff many years ago.

It doesn't matter how many times double blind trials are done to test homeopathy, and there have been many, none of them ever work better than a placebo.


Homeopathy in humans works because the consultation is ninety minutes instead of the ten you get from a doctor normally. It's the listening that cures, not the homeopathy.
 
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tristar said:
at one time the world was believed to be flat.
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Yea, up until what? 8000 years ago? Before we had any mathematics or science to speak of. I'm not really sure that argument holds much water... Unlike homeopathy which holds a great deal of water indeed. Exclusively water, in fact.
 
tristar said:
vets do lots of things that do work based on evidence, and still the animal dies.
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There are MANY examples where people have trusted homeopathy and died.

The difference is that, as stated, homeopathy has never been shown to ever work beyond placebo effect and psychological benefits of longer consultations. Meanwhile normal medicine has many testes where its shown positive results and actual cures.

Homeopathy might help toward recovery from placebo but it won't cure cancer; it won't regrow bones or cure disease.

When it comes to animals who have no concept that the pills they are given will help toward recovery and where there is no real consultation element; homeopathy offers nothing for the animal. It might help the owner, but it has no benefit to the animal beyond what normal water would give (and in all honesty with the dilutions they use in homeopathy normal water is all it really is)
 
as i left school aged 14 i am at a serious disadvantage on here ha ha

however if god meant sheep to fly he would have given them wings, so i am lost on that argument.

homo is used in other forms not only water.

i thought it was a 15th century sailor that proved the world to be round by not sailing off the edge

i have used homo on animals but forgot to tell them they recovered because the treatment also involved a kiss and a hug.

i do find it a little arrogant to say if we can`t prove something it does`nt work, without thinking this could be due to our present scientific limitations in some measure.

people buy homo products everyday off the shelf and without consultation.

if there is a placebo effect perhaps there is also one when administering conventional drugs and research into the influence of the power of the mind over illness recovery in general would be interesting to see in the future as we learn more.
 
tristar said:
as i left school aged 14 i am at a serious disadvantage on here ha ha

however if god meant sheep to fly he would have given them wings, so i am lost on that argument.
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The argument is that no-one is ever going to be able to prove that a sheep can't fly, because it's impossible to prove a negative statement. So no-one will ever be able to prove that homeopathy doesn't work.


i have used homo on animals but forgot to tell them they recovered because the treatment also involved a kiss and a hug.
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They didn't recover because of the treatment. They recovered because of something called regression to the mean. Most illnesses in most animals will regress to the mean and the animal will recover. You could have saved your money and stuck to the kiss and hug and they would still have recovered.
 
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Overread said:
There are MANY examples where people have trusted homeopathy and died.
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So very very true. This is due to homeopathy being seen as a "last resort" treatment. It's something people reach for when convention has failed despite the RCT's and prospective long-term data.

I am a firm believer in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The RCTs show no difference, not a huge adverse event so there is "no difference" to modern medicine quote: Ben Goldacre. I quote Ben as he most prominent in opinion forming and propaganda - although not all of it!! It;s one mans opinion, not everyones and we are all free thinkers.

No difference is basically "as good as". The thing is, it's not without side effects however this is where "magic" and "science" might differ. The cost of managing side effects diverge. The cost to NHS of managing side effects of prescriptions are significant. You take ibuprofen? Here have some Omeprazole. You take Coagulants? Here have some anti-coagulants.

Lets not dictate lives on just RCTs... they are not the answer to everything and are funded by interested parties with bias no matter how hidden.

Where there's interest, there's money.

Like i always say.... love a lot, trust a few, always paddle your own canoe. Never be blinkered by science. I've had a vested interest inscience since 1998 and the more I know, the more I get sceptical - mostly the other way! But do be careful!!! There's charlatans about of course and as it is not regulated, who knows what might occur!
 
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strangely enough i was aware of aristotle and the other greek doubting the shape of earth, they did not however, attempt to sail off the edge of the earth to prove their point

i still think we are in the dark ages of knowledge and unaware of many things yet to be shown to work, i personally believe that the world is complete, ie nature provides a lot of its own cures in counterbalance to maladies.

i have seen ponies pick willow herbal, to help themselves when they have a known illness,maybe they know something we don`t, its a another strange thing that many years ago i observed animals recover through the passing of the normal progression and time span of a disease or infection whether or not they received conventional veterinary intervention so you could say they regressed to the mean, but i would only say they got better on their own so i`d know what i`m talking about! so there is a possibility that the animal would have recovered without the expensive vet treatment.

i do believe my pony got better through homo. she would not have recovered on her own because it was an allergy


many people buy homo products off the shelf, no consultation, on a repeat basis over a long period.

and as for the sheep thing and proof, how about when it does work, who are people to tell others it does`nt work when it does work for them personally.

double blind thingys, are they real!!! surely one either gets better or does`nt
 
At this stage I feel it is important to point out the difference between homeopathy and herbalism. Herbal medicines have been around for thousands of years, in fact large amounts of modern medicine is based around ancient herbal medicine. There are over 7000 substances regularly used in human medicines that are derived from plants.

Homeopathy however is a completely different beast. The theory (if you can call it such) is that a substance that causes symptoms of disease in a healthy person, is also capable of curing these symptoms in diseased people. To add to this already sketchy philosophy homeopathic medicines undergo a process known as homeopathic dilution. During this process molecules of the substance are diluted over and over again. The substance is then shook in a process known as succussion (imagine shaking a maraca over and over). At the end of this process no molecules of the initial substance remain.

I am not opposed to people trying homeopathy, in fact I will never tell a client not to use homeopathy. My issue is with people (veterinary surgeons and others) peddling hope and making money from clients who in many cases do not know better. Homeopathy is a pseudoscience, there is no scientific evidence for any of it. I understand that many times despite conventional medicines, animals do not recover but this is neither the vet nor the medicines fault. Sometimes animals just cannot be saved.

On several occasions I have been presented with horses who have been too far gone, but owners have persisted with homeopathy for several weeks or even months. I know that in several of these cases I would have been able to improve these patients medical conditions with conventional medicines.

I frankly am quite fed up of homeopaths giving the saming answers to anyone who doubts the validity of homeopathy. The most common response from homeopaths is 'show me the evidence that it does not work?!?!?!?!' Seriously, people allow their animals to be treated on the back of this.

The day someone puts an evidence based study down in front of me, and shows me that homeopathy works, I will drop my arguments about it there and then, and becomes an advocate for it, however that will be the day that pigs.....or in the context of this thread sheep will fly.
 
i have seen ponies pick willow herbal, to help themselves when they have a known illness,maybe they know something we don`t,
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You don't seem aware that willow contains salicylic acid. We know this as aspirin and Bazuka verruca gel.

There is a world of difference between self medication using a plant with good and long proven medicinal properties, and believing that water can retain a memory of a molecule which it no longer contains.
 
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i did know about the aspirin, i was trying say badly that the pony actively sort to remedy the headache which was a symptom of its condition with herbal medicine which i find fascinating, and learned something from.

i would hate to be in that ben blokes shoes if proof is found it does work, he`s very angry! it reminds of the entrenched attitudes in favour of rollkur justified by numerous gold medals van grunsven style, and yet amazingly how when hester and co walked onto the scene it all evaporated in a new era,{ excuse the pun. a well known homo brand}, a dawning of not needing to torture horses to win medals, and rollkur is disproved and consigned to the dustbin of disproved theories.

my experience is that a lot of conditions are not diagnosed correctly, i often have a vet ask me whats wrong with the horse or how did it progress,i have learned a lot from lack of diagnosis and been left to find a reason for the condition and self diagnose, there seems to be a lot of inexperienced vets, they need to concentrate their energies on that area.
 
tristar said:
strangely enough i was aware of aristotle and the other greek doubting the shape of earth, they did not however, attempt to sail off the edge of the earth to prove their point
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Why would they when they didn't believe (on the basis of mathematics and astronomical observation) that there would be an "edge" to sail off? It is well accepted that the middle ages / early modern flat earth doctrine is a myth, despite how commonly people cling to it.

I don't reckon Ben Goldacre's too worried. He's angry because people cling to this sort of nonsense (much as people cling to the flat earth nonsense), despite the many, many trials in which homeopathy has been shown not to work. Not a single trial of acceptable design has ever shown any benefit in homeopathy.

This has nothing to do with how it works. This is simply that nobody can show that it does work. It's akin to me claiming that clapping your hands together three times and reciting a nifty little rhyme will protect you from catching 'flu' - because you'd see exactly the same sort of results with that as you would with homeopathy.

But hey, maybe we should market that, because, y'know, just because science can't prove it doesn't mean it doesn't work - right?
 
Aristotle did not need to attempt to sail off the edge of HHe earth to prove in was not flat, he used scientific methodology to deduce that it was round. He had three observations:
1 Certain stars disappear off the northern hemisphere as one travels south and the other way round.
2 the earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse is always a circle
3 Ships disappear off the horizon hull first whatever direction they are traveling.

Also homeopathy can only be delivered in water form as only water has memory. Any solid or other liquid form of homeopathy should be ineffective by the very claims of the theory. Although I don't think internal consistency ever bothered homeopaths!
 
ash_vet said:
On several occasions I have been presented with horses who have been too far gone, but owners have persisted with homeopathy for several weeks or even months. I know that in several of these cases I would have been able to improve these patients medical conditions with conventional medicines.
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Now you've said the above, I actually think perhaps vets need to oversee the practice of homeopathy in order to protect animals/customers. How come if the animals were too far gone, you could have improved them with "conventional" medicines?
 
tallyho! said:
Now you've said the above, I actually think perhaps vets need to oversee the practice of homeopathy in order to protect animals/customers. How come if the animals were too far gone, you could have improved them with "conventional" medicines?
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I think he meant he could have helped them if he'd seen them earlier but by the time the owner accepted that the homeopathy had failed, the animal was beyond help.

The whole point is that homeopathy doesn't work Tallyho. How can any vet ethically oversee withholding effective treatment from a sick animal?
 
ycbm said:
I think he meant he could have helped them if he'd seen them earlier but by the time the owner accepted that the homeopathy had failed, the animal was beyond help.

The whole point is that homeopathy doesn't work Tallyho. How can any vet ethically oversee withholding effective treatment from a sick animal?
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Hmm, no he said he was "presented with animals who have been too far gone, but owners persisted with homeopathy" so to me this reads that he had already dismissed them and then said he would have been able to help... no?

Yes, I agree ycbm, but sometimes conventional medicine doesn't work either. However, in my mind, if a doctor or a vet were to control/regulate the practice, it would protect more people. As I work in pharma, I meet clinicians who also have this debate in real life and I know I'm not the only person who thinks this.

Even if the professionals condemn it, it's not going to mean people will not continue to use homeopathy. The frustration continues.
 
Just because someone is a trained vet doesn't mean they won't make mistakes.

Just because someone is a trained vet doesn't mean that they will always be able to diagnose a problem.

Just because something can treat a condition doesn't guarantee that it will always do so, or do so without undesirable side effects.

All of this can hold but it still doesn't make homeopathy work. In homeopathy you have something with:
- outrageously silly claims, e.g. water has memory
- claims that do not cohere with anything else we know about physics and chemistry, e.g. like cures like and dilution increases potency
- claims that are not even internally consistent, e.g. non-water homeopathic tablets should be impossible based on the theory itself
- and with a placebo effect.
 
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